SSE What is the Purpose of RNAM (race) in the Armor Category

[Mebantiza]

This one has bugged me for some time. RNAM and Items. The vanilla game, is all over the map with this piece of data. The majority of items, use DEFAULT RACE. However a still significant number of items, have things like Imperial Race, Woodelf Race, Argonian Race, etc, attached to various items like rings necklaces etc.

 

Here is what the occasionally helpful and useful CK wiki has to say about that data type:

 

Race: Whether the Armor is restricted to a specific Race. Playable armor always uses DefaultRace.

 

So what does this mean in effect? This seems to be saying, all playable armor ignores race specific and uses default race? Or, why for example, does almost every necklace have Woodfelf Race, shouldnt it be default? Every race can use necklaces, so why is that field set to Woodelf in the first place? The wiki, seems to be saying two things here. One, restrict to racial type, but, every piece of armor is considered default race. Ok. So is the game engine ignoring that field entirely? Put another way, is, or are, there, any cases or instances where RNAM actually comes into play? I dont know of any, and it is anything but clear what , if any effect altering is. To use my example, why are pretty much all necklaces Woodelf race? Yet, if you scroll through all the listings, you will see how inconsistent all these listings really are. Necklaces are not confined, or restricted in use, by Woodfelfs, so why arent they all just ...default race?

 

 

Mods, and USSEP on occasion, do change these values, but, to what end, or effect, Is what I am trying to determine.

 

 

 

It is really noticeable with Jewelry, but it pops up in actual Armor as well.

 

 

For example

 

All the Dragonscale helmets are set to ORC RACE, yet the rest of the piece of that set > Default Race.

 

I can only assume, setting all those helmets to ORC Race, is an error?

Edited June 23, 2019 by Mebantiza

[IsharaMeradin]

Unknown.

 

Lets look at the Dragonscale helmets:

 

The Armor record has a RNAM: OrcRace "Orc" [RACE:00013747]

The Armor record has the following armor addons:

DragonscaleHelmetArgonianAA [ARMA:000DB3EB]

DragonscaleHelmetKhajiitAA [ARMA:000DB3F0]

DragonscaleHelmet [ARMA:00059E75]

DragonscaleHelmetOrcAA [ARMA:001075E9]

While the Armor Addons have the following RNAMs

ArgonianRace "Argonian" [RACE:00013740]

KhajiitRace "Khajiit" [RACE:00013745]

DefaultRace "Default Race" [RACE:00000019]

OrcRace "Orc" [RACE:00013747]

 

Note how the Orc AA has the Orc race for the RNAM. Also note, when looking at the list of addons on the armor record that the Orc addon is at one end of the list. Chances are that that addon record was made first and the armor record populated with data from it. But this is just speculation.

 

Look at any other group of armor and armor addon records and you can see the same thing at work. The entry at the end of the list of armor addon records assigned to the armor record has its RNAM value assigned to the RNAM of the armor record.

 

Now as to why most jewelry is different? I cannot say. It is possible that a patch made some changes and in the process affected armor addons had their RNAM changed from Wood Elf to Argonian.

 

Is there an error? As long as it works as intended, no. I do not think that it could be considered an error.

 

In the long run, it probably does not matter what is on the RNAM of the actor record so long as it is either an RNAM or additional race on one of the assigned addon records.

[Mebantiza]

Yes......

 

Even if the game has race specific models it loads for an item, those do not appear to be governed by RNAM in any way.

 

Well, to test the idea, I loaded up my character, changed it to an ORC (male), changed one of the DS helmets, EnchArmorDragonscaleHelmetAlchemy04 in this instance from ORC race, to Default race, to see what would happen.

 

For the record, I was not expecting anything at all to happen, but, Skyrim can and does throw out unexpected results from time to time so......

 

 

 

 

The end result? Absolutely no effect or difference I can detect in my QAsmoke test save.

 

Nor any combination of race or gender I selected. I can only conclude the 'ORC race' setting in this case, is simply being ignored by the game engine. If that is so, and it appears to be the case, then it is ignoring the flag for every other item in ARMOR as well and treating them all as DEFAULT RACE regardless. If this is not the case, I would be interested to know.

 

Unless someone has some deep insight into the matter, I am inclined to suspect, the game engine simply ignores that field. Maybe, possibly, it might have some impact on NON-playable items, based on the CK wikis wording, but that is just speculation.

 

@IsharaMeradin

 

You could right, maybe it is some kind of CK artifact that manifests itself when you save or update an esp\esm.

Edited June 23, 2019 by Mebantiza